Pages

Thursday, March 16, 2006

Although ColorBurst Video has been around for a while, we've only recently added a web presence. Do a search for "colorburst" and you'll find lots of references. So why are we named "ColorBurst Video?" I chose the name some years ago as a deliberate play on words describing technical parameters of a video signal. The two words together also had the "feel" of brilliant, vibrant images that almost leap off the screen. Since we are all about using video to tell personal stories in a compelling way, the name stuck and we began using it on business cards and stationery.

If you are interested, here's a bit about the technical side: The color part of a television signal (chrominance) is superimposed on the monochrome or black-and-white (luminance) part of the signal using a subcarrier. Different colors are represented by the phase of the color subcarrier. When color television was being developed, there was a need to be sure that the monitor had a way to synchronize with the camera that originated the image. The colorburst is a very brief signal sent at the start of each line of the picture. In NTSC, it is 8 cycles of 3.579545 mHz with a phase of 180-degrees. (I TOLD you it was technical.) Circuits in the tv monitor use the signal as a known reference point to determine what color to display on the screen at any moment in time. You can find out more information about technical side of television at
Tutorials on NTSC color television.